Tennessee and many other states are seeing a record number of cases this year of pertussis, also known as whooping cough. One reason for the increase could be fewer children who are getting vaccinated against the disease.
More than 260 cases of whooping cough have been reported this year in Tennessee. That’s an almost three-fold increase over last year. Federal health officials recommend that children should be vaccinated for pertussis by the time they’re 3. In Tennessee and most other states, only 80 percent of children are getting the vaccine in that time frame.
One problem could be a perception that it’s been eradicated, like polio or small pox, according to Jeff Levi of the group Trust for America’s Health.
“One of the reasons it appeared to be from prior generations is we’d done such a good job of vaccinating folks. Once you become complacent about this, we see a resurgence of old bugs, not just new bugs.”
The vaccine can wear off. Tennessee recently required all children to get a whooping cough booster before entering seventh grade.
Levi says how well a state vaccinates against pertussis is a good gauge of how it would respond to a mass outbreak of a new type of flu or some other disease. It’s one of the factors included in a new report that measures states’ ability to cope with emergencies.
Read the report here.
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